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For Those Who Think Differently...

I have written many times of the persistent but forlorn attempts by central bankers to “stimulate” growth in their countries’ flagging economies by applying the twin practices of quantitative easing (QE) and lowering interest rates.

It has been clear for years that these policies simply do not work. The only surprise is that, despite all the evidence, their perpetrators persist with them, and do not give up.

Blindness of French labour laws

When I was recently on holiday in the South of France the socialist government of Francois Hollande was obliged to take the unusual step of by-passing democratic means of getting his labour reform measures into law. He resorted to the rarely invoked “executive power”, to force through changes in labour laws against the stolid opposition of those on the left of his party and the labour unions – and in this way he cut through a year-long impasse in the National Assembly.

The cause of vastly inflated executive remuneration is the same as that which lies behind every other “bubble”…

On July 11 The Times published an article by Theresa May in which she highlighted the anomaly of the FTSE trading at the same level as it was 18 years ago, while in the same period executive pay has more than trebled, with a growing gap between what these companies pay their workers and what they pay their bosses.

Much has been made of Britain’s current account deficit, which is the amount by which our imports of goods and services exceed our exports. It is a situation that protectionists would love to “do something about”, such as resorting to tariffs in order to redress the gap. But protectionists overlook the fact that one of the main reasons for exporting is to be able to import, and it is clearly mistaken to think of exports as “good” and imports as “ bad”, especially as we cannot control the conduct of our trading partners.

Frustration has taken the world by the throat, from extremist violence, ethical quandaries and culture clashes put forward by the largest refugee migration since the Second World War, the failure of internationalism and globalism, and the rise of reactionary elements. The political and economic world is in disarray.

Coverage on these elements has at times been isolated, while others struggled to find convergences. Authoritarianism, neo-liberal economics, class struggle, have all made a theoretical come back, some rightfully so and others not so much.

Have you heard the one about Goldman Sachs investing $9.6 million into the Adolescent Behavioural Learning Experience (ABLE) programme at Rikers Island penitentiary in New York? No? It’s a corker. But it’s no joke. It is a disturbing example of what can happen when big finance gets involved in public policy. It’s also one of the most baffling examples of “impact investing” anywhere on the planet.

About two weeks ago whilst preparing for teaching our photography students I took a walk in the quiet backstreets of Tbilisi in a neighbourhood full of beautiful decaying 19th century buildings. I was preparing to take photos for a charity event called Children for Children where our students would be taking images to be sold at auction in order to help disadvantaged children here in Georgia.

I wish I’d been in that meeting. You know, the one where advertising giant Ogilvy decided to launch a new internship programme called “The Pipe”. Read the application page and you’d think this was a golden ticket to meet Willy Wonka. A top flight global creative elite is giving the plebs a chance? How great is that? No previous experience required, no age limits, it’s like Eton offering scholarships to kids and OAPs off a council estate in Jaywick.

I wish I’d been in that meeting. You know, the one where East Riding County Council instructed Jacobs Enforcement Services to recover an outstanding parking fine from nurse Rachael Carron (with Jacobs charging her several times the amount of the parking fine – £399 – in fees to do so). What sort of meeting does that sound like? Local politicians instructing an organisation that uses self-employed “enforcers” to collect debts for a fee that’s several times higher than the debt itself… sounds more like The Sopranos than the local council car park department, doesn’t it? The use of private debt recovery and enforcement is little more than legalised racketeering.

Over the past decade there has been a boom in the industry of “motivational speaking”.

The industry has seen a boom across both of its sectors be it relating to individual and personal struggles or those related to the business and entrepreneurial world. Irrespective of which audience these speakers address, they all seem to capitalise on the inherent challenges and difficulties of life to motivate others in a bid to assist them on their path to self-actualization.

I intend to do what little one man can do to awaken the public conscience, and in the meantime I am not frightened by your menaces. I am not a giant physically; I shrink from pain and filth and vermin and foul air, like any other man of refinement; also, I freely admit, when I see a line of a hundred policemen with drawn revolvers flung across a street to keep anyone from coming onto private property to hear my feeble voice, I am somewhat disturbed in my nerves. But I have a conscience and a religious faith, and I know that our liberties were not won without suffering, and may be lost again through our cowardice. I intend to do my duty to my country.1

When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008 this was treated as a landmark event. He presented himself as the underdog, an outsider from a minority background, who spoke eloquently about a fairer society, an end to war in the Middle East, transparency in government and a green future. His speeches promised “change” and “hope,” and voters were infused with optimism. Eight years later a fair assessment of his efforts is that they were hardly any better than George W. Bush’s.

I wish I’d been in that meeting. You know… the one where Facebook decided to hire a scary blue chip law firm to threaten a small non-profit anti-litter campaign over infringing its Instagram trademark.

That’s not because it’s a good example of a multi-billion dollar giant bullying a tiny little company with no hope of defending itself against a mega-lawsuit. Nor is it because of the startling irony of using trademark law to aggressively defend Instagram, a brand that is a deeply questionable trademark to begin with. Read More

Freedom has been the ultimate battle cry of liberal politics. It has shaped the battle field from the French revolution, the American war of independence, the Second World War, and even the modern day battle fields of Iraq and Syria. It has become a term so inextricably linked to democratic progress and has become the de-facto way in determining who, in any conflict, possesses legitimacy.

And why should it not be? Freedom, in its conceptual form, is the ultimate attestation to the importance of individual will over that of society. It presents the inextricable truth that we, although social, exist on an individual conscious level with different motivations, experiences, and objectives, and have an inherent right to our thoughts and feelings. More so, in a grander sense, it is the final and only measure on which a state can be truly held accountable on when judged on its ability to govern without slipping into the temptation of rule.

“The more laws and commands there are, the more thieves and robbers there will be.” Lao Tzu

Information leaked in the Panama Papers about the use of tax havens certainly supports this statement! Under the cover of the law thieves and robbers have been maintaining their privilege and ultra-wealth by being tricky. Many of them are leaders – politicians, monarchs and business executives. “I have done nothing illegal,” they say as their souls disappear a little further into a fog. And from the germ of their example a cancer grows.

Famous for once claiming it did God’s work – Goldman Sachs is one of the most influential investment banks in the world. Its alumni often occupy positions of great influence in governments and central banks. In September 2008, barely a month before the stock market crash, Goldman – supposedly a pillar of the free market – changed its banking status from investment to commercial. This meant it was now eligible for state protection. Socialism for the rich, right there.

When we find ourselves in need of a miracle there is a simple formula that can be applied: “Don’t panic, take stock, and do the next logical thing.” If we apply this formula, hold our course and maintain a positive outlook, the white knight of providence may intercede on our behalf.

That is not to say that the relationship between action and consequence can be avoided. There is no magic wand for the absolution of a life of feckless excess. In the case of our collective consumption binge, we have brought about the sixth mass-extinction event (to add to the previous ones, which are evident in the Earth’s geologic record), we have created a shambolic financial system of gross imbalance, and we have allowed our culture to degrade so far that a figure as flawed as that of Donald Trump has been allowed to become a credible candidate for the position of the world’s supposedly most powerful person. It would be a long way back to some semblance of a reasonable equilibrium.

But we should not give up hope. If we work through our collective karma, we might find that there is the potential for regeneration.

Capitalism comes with a potpourri of sweet-scented prefixes, all of which presume that there is something wrong with capitalism per se. There are some other prefixes we commonly hear—crony capitalism and unbridled capitalism—that suggest that we aren’t doing it right.

Perhaps it is Goldilocks capitalism we need? Not too mean, with just the right amount of good will and charity, a measured dose of state regulation, a safety net – not too big and not too small, and the rest left to the free market?

I wish I’d been in that meeting. The one where Trinity Mirror staff brainstormed the idea for a new kind of daily newspaper. That must have been quite a thing. A room full of newspaper execs and seasoned editorial staff, throwing out rulebooks and old fashioned thinking. The result… A DAILY NEWSPAPER.

Separating economics and politics is impossible, so it’s important to point out that the misguided notion of austerity is not just killing people, but also democracy.

Democratic governance is built on the ideal concept of citizen involvement. That is, the notion that for a government to be able to manage the citizens of its state, citizens need to be involved in the decision making process.

This justifies the use of voter turnout as a barometer of democratic health. The greater the voter involvement the further a governing system is from autocracy or bureaucracy. The metric also acts as a self-check mechanism, where low voter turnout provides a platform to push radical or reformist agendas.

1. Under proposed new assessment guidance for tests for 11 year olds, if your child scores 5 out of 6 for their ability to change nouns to adjectives by adding prefixes/suffixes, they’ll end up with a grand score of 0. For more on this, read this article from the Cambridge Primary Review.

2. If your child does SATS tests in the next year and beyond, they are expected to be writing, reading and doing maths at a level previously expected of a child at least a year older. The “expected” level has risen dramatically. If they fall short, they will have to resit in Year 7.

I wish I’d been in that meeting, the one where Twitter decided to create its new Trust and Safety Council.

According to Twitter’s most vocal free speech activists (aka Trolls), this is an Orwellian suppression of free speech by radical feminists, homosexuals, jews, islamists and the left-wing liberal media.

According to Twitter’s CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey “Twitter stands for freedom of expression, speaking truth to power, and empowering dialogue. That starts with safety.”

I wish I’d been in that meeting, the one where YouTube TV moguls the Fine Brothers abandoned their controversial plans to trademark the word “React”, abandoned their global licensing scheme for “React to…” video formats and ditched their copyright infringement claims against other “reaction videos”.

Make no mistake, this is a big deal for the future of entertainment and the evolution of digital media, and is so deeply ironic that it almost tore a whole in the space time continuum.

The concept of ‘Division of Labour’ has been around since 380 B.C. Ever since being mentioned in Plato’s Republic it has become a fundamental economic principle that is deemed necessary for both the construction of a state, and a way of providing basic needs and services for citizens.

The way of the renaissance men, the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Nikola Tesla did not fit within one of the division of labour silos – thankfully. So how do we now begin to awaken our natural curiosity, exploration, and critical thinking?

“The highest degree of charity is to aid a man in want, not by offering a gift or a loan, but by entering into a partnership with him or by providing work for him – so he may become self-sufficient.”

Written by Maimonides – a preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and astronomer – these words have been an inspiration to many. It’s a way of saying that fair and effective partnership beats the charity hand out.

You know, the one where the secretive board of VW bosses decided their future direction lay down the road signposted “Electric Vehicles”. They’ve hired Christian Senger from VW technology supplier Continental, where he was involved in the development of electric vehicle systems and autonomous-driving technology, to lead the charge. The message is clear. The mistakes of VW’s diesel-engined past will be fixed by reconfiguring their product lines around electric power.

Imagine what sort of grim circumstances would drive a top TV executive, placed in charge of a hugely successful global TV franchise like Top Gear, to walk out just a couple of months before the new series is due to air. Got to be serious, right? When you consider the relationship between the public broadcaster and its lucrative subsidiary BBC Worldwide, and the complex bundle of licensing deals and spin off products that Top Gear has become… well, the whole thing looks a bit Lehman Bros.

What sort of thinking would shape the commissioning of a six-part documentary series for the 10pm Tuesday evening slot on BBC2? It’s a tricky slot to fill. It has traditionally belonged to light entertainment (cheap TV filler). But the problem for BBC 2 is, it’s not that cheap anymore. The popular smug trivia show Q.I. fills that slot, and Stephen Fry ain’t cheap. Russell Howard too, and there’s wage inflation competition from Comedy Central for the likes of him. The rest of the week it’s populated with generic comedy celeb panel games, but even cheap celebs start to get pricey when there’s three each side plus the host. And a live studio audience. Clearly, in the age of austerity, a memo has been passed around BBC 2 to make deep cuts… and so we have Phone Shop Idol.

We are looking for an intern with design and social media skills, the right person would want to gain experience in the development and launch of an independent media platform. The internship will be full time (although we can work out flexible working hours) and will last 12-16 weeks. It will be from our studio in West London and we will cover travel expenses and lunch.

Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, one thing has taken centre stage when it comes to economic recovery: job creation.

It is under this banner that governments were able to justify multi-billion dollar bailout grants while imposing austerity measures and cutting interest rates. This, they believed, was the only way the economic cycle could be saved.

It is not often you hear of a priest who worried the former British Prime Minister dubbed ‘The Iron Lady’. Margret Thatcher called Donald Reeves a ‘very dangerous man’ due to his support of the oppressed and his refusal to see foreign policy in terms of black and white.

We’ve all been that person who tries to start a conversation with a bunch of strangers out of extreme social anxiety at being in a confined space with a load of similarly anxious people in close proximity, like a lift or a sauna. Never works, does it? Linked In is a bit like that.

Except Linked In people hand out business cards in lifts and saunas. They don’t converse or comment, just respond to everything by giving you their details and a link to their CV. It’s the unspoken rule. “Shhhh, just look at where I went to uni and update your contacts with my new email…” is all they say.

Steve Keen is one of very few economists globally who perfectly predicted the 2008 financial crisis. More recently he also predicted the Chinese economic downturn and deflation in Europe. How does he keep getting these predictions correct? The secret is to look at the elements of the economy that all mainstream economists deliberately ignore.

Most of us haven’t quite realized there is something extraordinary happening.

A few months ago I freed myself from standard-procedure society, I broke the chains of fear that kept me locked up into the system. Since then, I see the world from a different perspective: the one that everything is going through change and that most of us are unware of that.

Why is the world changing? In this post I’ll point out the 8 reasons that lead me to believe it.

Eliane Glaser is a Guardian writer, a lecturer and broadcaster. Her interest in ideology and propaganda has led her to critique the current faltering economic system.

In this episode of Meet the Renegades she explores how work is changing, how politics has been hijacked and how we can adapt to the new world. Hint: tech won’t solve everything.

“You have this kind of astroturf politics – a fake grass roots politics. You pretend to be on the side of the working man even though you’re a financial elite or you’re benefiting financial elites. And it’s this politics of disguise, the fake authentic politics where you say ‘we’re with you the hardworking people’ – but actually your interests are not at all aligned. ”

Her most recent book ‘Get Real – How to See Through the Hype, Spin and Lies of Modern Life’ is about how (almost) everything is now fake. In it she busts the jargon, unravels the spin and reveals the secrets behind modern life that we’re not really supposed to know.

Private institutions who sell education as a commodity for profit are putting their interests above that of children. This corrosive shift is not what children, teachers or the world needs. Economist Prabhat Patnaik explains how real education is being deconstructed.

Ross Ashcroft speaks with Roger Mavity – former chief executive of The Conran Group and author of The Rule Breakers Book of Business – about idea that success at work is much more likely to be achieved if we are happy and confident in what we do. HINT: it’s only by ignoring the conventional wisdom.

The night has been lit up with the red white and blue of the French flag, which, projected on landmarks across the occident, showed solidarity after coordinated terrorist attacks left at least 129 civilians of all faiths, religions, and ethnicities, dead. This solidarity was reverberated across social media sites, but it was not the lone voice. Many added to this feeling of despair and horror by asking “what about us?” recounting similar incidents of national suffering in Lebanon, Turkey, and Afghanistan.

The late fourteen hundreds saw the scramble of enlightened countries towards conquest of what was once known as “the new world”. Fuelled by the righteous notion under the banner of religion – God, Europe was to civilise the native populations of these new found territories.

To fund this conquest, gold was needed, gold to pay for ships, armies, and most importantly to enable the fast advance into, and claims of new territories away from the scorched battlefields of Europe. With these advances, the flags of European countries would claim glory back home, supremacy and exceptionalism over other nations and civilisations.

Darren Coffield is an artist and writer who feels the art world (read art industry) has become so commercialised that it now exists only to serve the collector, the speculator and the market.

In this episode of Meet the Renegades, Darren lifts the lid on how contemporary artists actually become famous and how ‘the market’ has created the art ‘industry.’

“The idea of originality which was a great point of modernism, of modern design; the idea of being original, of being true to yourself that’s completely gone out the window because you’re now into commodification of things.”

He explains that authenticity and originality have been stifled and extreme gentrification has pushed many artists to survive on margin of society.

As the lifespan of every company shortens, paying lip service to change is dangerous and following the herd can be fatal.

I’ve recently been working with a few mature established companies on how to survive and thrive in an age of digitally-driven disruption and I’m struck by how often the initial response is that the “disruptive-age” sounds a bit far off in the future.

In this bonus sequence from our Meet the Renegades show, writer John Lanchester talks about the London housing crisis, it’s social impacts and it’s consequences for ordinary citizens who can no longer afford to live in their capital city.

In this episode of Meet The Renegades we speak to economics writer Martin Sandbu from the Financial Times.

His recently released book ‘Europe’s Orphan: The Future of the Euro and the Politics of Debt’ attacks the current thinking of what politicians and policy makers in Brussels and Frankfurt consider to be self-evident.

“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”

So said the Red Queen to Alice when describing the nature of Looking Glass Land and it should be heeded by us, here, in Glass Tower Land.

The “Red Queen Hypothesis”, coined by an evolutionary scientist, describes the phenomenon “that organisms must constantly adapt, evolve, and proliferate not merely to gain reproductive advantage, but also simply to survive while pitted against ever-evolving opposing organisms in an ever-changing environment.”

It’s been about sixteen weeks since we closed our successful crowd-funding round, which many of you generously supported. Since then we have been busy at HQ creating the new Renegade Inc. platform. We have also been filming a new series of Meet the Renegades and meeting possible funding partners.

“When you have a great idea, nobody else can tell you whether it’s good or not. Only time will tell.”

Hugh’s best selling book Ignore Everybody has inspired many to take the leap and trust their ideas. He left advertising and began what is now a international career as a cartoonist. But where do ideas come from? And what motivates people to break out and do things differently?

Over 20minutes Hugh shares his views on what it takes to build an ‘overnight success’. He talks about his career and work to date and why we should all question our current notion of what it is to be ‘successful’.

On this episode of Meet the Renegades, Ross Ashcroft welcomes Christian Felber – author, lecturer and founder of the Economy for the Common Good.

From Aristotle to Adam Smith economics was a school of thought based on Natural Laws and philosophy. How come we have strayed so far from our roots? What really has the Mont Pelerin Society got to do with Reaganomics and Thatcherism?

There are vast numbers of Zombie companies out there who are paying off nominal interest payments on huge debts in order to keep the lights on.

“Zombie Company” is a media term for a company that needs constant bailouts in order to operate, or an indebted company that is able to repay the interest on its debts but not reduce its debts…Wikipedia

Ross Ashcroft speaks to Anat Admati, Finance and Economics professor at Stanford School of Business. She is author of The Bankers’ New Clothes and gives a truthful view into the banking sector and the damage it has caused to the real economy.

David Graeber, anthropologist and author of Debt: The First 5000 years, explains in this ‘Comment is Free’ video that ‘if the government balances its books, it becomes impossible for the private sector to do the same. And, he claims, this inevitable debt often gets landed on those in society least able to pay it back’.

The language we use is telling. We don’t ever ‘lead decline’ or ‘manage success’. We do the opposite – we ‘manage’ decline and ‘lead’ any success.

In business it’s binary – you’re doing one or the other. If you are in a corporate structure the likelihood is you are managing decline. If you have opted for the autonomy to write your own rules then you have more of a chance to lead a success.

Both Liz (the person I had come to meet) and I were rendered speechless: how could VW have allowed, no willed, this to happen?

It’s known that car companies fiddle with their emissions testing by retuning engines etc but to create a piece of software specifically to cheat the authorities is premeditated fraud. I felt personally betrayed.

Which it did, according to Clay Christensen, the author of The Innovator’s Dilemma and the Grand Daddy of the innovation field.

Speaking at the RSA, Professor Christensen defined his views on innovation in compellingly simplistic terms and laid the blame of what went wrong firmly at the feet of the MBA schools prioritisation of the accumulation of capital above all else.

The wealth and income gap between the top 1% and the remaining 99% in the UK, and across much of the western world, is on the increase and showing no signs of slowing down. Many of us do not recognise any positive benefits from this misguided attitude forced upon us by the ruling elite, and we are lectured to like children that by making people richer at the top everyone else will eventually profit below them.

Indeed, many politicians base their entire strategy on this flawed logic without questioning its true effectiveness. They label it as “the trickle down effect”.

From Camp Kotok in Maine, Ross Ashcroft speaks to Leland Miller, president of China Beige Book International. They discuss the current landscape of the Chinese economy as well as Miller’s predictions for the next 5 years.

In this Renegade Inc. talk show at Camp Kotok in Maine, Ross Ashcroft speaks to Matt Tyrmand from the NGO American Transparency which focuses on government accountability. They discuss the mission of American Transparency’s ‘Open The Books’ project, the Free Market and the liberalisation of Poland’s economy.

Ross Ashcroft speaks to David Kotok, founder of Camp Kotok, in Maine, and Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Cumberland Advisors. They discuss the origins and purpose of Camp Kotok, the global economy, the Fed and US private debt levels.

Despite their bed-hopping antics, the most important legacy of the Bloomsbury Group is what can be achieved by people who are prepared to challenge convention in pursuit of a better world, argues Mark Braund.

How much of U.S. foreign policy is genuinely altruistic? In this extract from the documentary Four Horsemen, we explore how much the war on terror is actually influenced by banks and corporations that profit so from it.

Make no mistake, the purposeful exclusion of growing numbers from economic activity is an integral aspect of the economic system. The argument that there is no alternative to current arrangements carries with it an explicit acceptance that economic ‘realities’ make full employment impossible. This is utter nonsense, yet without fundamental change, exclusion will only get worse. The technology that should be delivering more comfortable lives and increased leisure time is instead accelerating the process of exclusion.

Making a job, not taking a job means so much more than simply turning your back on employment and setting up on your own. It is more a way of life, a new distinctive multiple income stream lifestyle. It requires a new way of thinking, and not relying on big business or government to put our best interests first.

By now you may have noticed a common theme in these descriptions of how the banking sector and the financial markets make money: they do so not by creating real wealth but by manipulating a virtual-money economy. They can only do this because the banks are able to create money at will. This would be fine if they were dealing in matchsticks or Monopoly money, but they are dealing in the same money that is essential to the process of creating real wealth.

Fractional reserve banking began in Britain in the early days of gold and silver coinage, when people would deposit their coins with goldsmiths for safekeeping. The goldsmith issued a certificate with which the depositor could redeem his gold at a later date. These early bankers soon noticed that their certificates of deposit were being used as a method of payment. Why make a trip to the goldsmith when market stallholders were happy to accept a piece of paper as payment?

In 2008 the Queen asked Luis Garicano, an economics professor at The London School of Economics, why nobody saw the global financial crisis coming. He was unable to answer her question. Is there a collective noun for economists? A dither would be appropriate, or perhaps a hindsight – but certainly not a vision. How is it that a handful of economists could see that the global economy was headed for the rocks while most remained blissfully unaware? How did the discipline of economics become so unfit for purpose?

Looking at the terms of the Greek bailout one thing is abundantly clear: this is not only a heartless deal, but a brainless one as well. The IMF – no tooth fairy themselves, as the Nigerian Seun Kuti’s song IMF makes clear – have signaled that they think the current Greek debt will never be repaid and would benefit from a partial write off, along with some ‘reforms’ that would see pensions slashed further and the retirement age pushed upwards. Sadly this program, austere in of itself, is not sufficient for those within the German Government and the EU who will accept no suggestion of a debt write off whatsoever.

Can Greece ever pay off its debts, adopt a German economic mindset and stay in the euro?

Since 2010 we have been gripped by the shenanigans being played out by major governments across the euro area. We all know Greece is in a catastrophic situation and its people are being shattered for a state of affairs that was not their fault. The debt is truly colossal, too immense to describe, but nevertheless I’m going to try and throw a bit of perspective on things.

Most people equate money with wealth, but in economic terms money and wealth are quite separate things. Wealth can be defined as those goods and services which are essential to wellbeing, along with others which enhance our experience of life. Money can be used to acquire such wealth, but of itself money is not wealth. This is a crucial distinction, but one about which neo-classical economics has very little to say.

When the worst rioting in a generation hit the streets of English cities last summer, politicians and pundits rushed to apportion blame. Many of the rioters, we were told, were previously convicted criminals and most were gang members. None had any respect for the law; all were pretty much beyond redemption.

Even people who do not believe that climate change is man made must see that our fragile environment is getting a battering from current economic arrangements. In a hyper-competitive economy, where mega-corporations chase short-term profits, something always gets exploited. Without systemic change, there is no chance of cooperation to achieve mutually beneficial solutions to the problems of resource depletion and climate change. Progress could quickly be made if the economic context and business incentives were to be altered.

News stories of peak self employment have given many commentators the false impression that the trend for working as a sole trader, or in a business with less than 10 employees is “returning to the norm” of big business employment domination. If you looked at the numbers and percentages from the 2008 crash through to today you would most likely agree, or at least see some evidence to support it.

The material benefits of a perpetually expanding economy have reached remarkably few people, despite the speed with which mainstream economic thinking has penetrated all corners of the planet. Even in rich countries, long-term economic security remains a minority privilege. Globalization has succeeded only in persuading nearly everybody (wherever they live) that they should aspire to the levels of consumption enjoyed by a minority of westerners. This is an impossible goal.

Critics of the current economic system condemn our modern-day ‘culture of consumption’. If we measure progress over the course of our lives purely by increased consumption, they say, or if all that motivates us to get out of bed in the morning is the thought of consuming, then not only will happiness elude us but humankind will quickly devour all the planet’s resources.

Our life prospects and our capacity to secure the wealth we need to survive and flourish are determined by the amount of economic power we each bring to the table. Currently the distribution of such power is extremely unequal. There are many reasons for this, some historical, some a consequence of different genetic attributes and some to do with the quality of environmental inputs when we are young. But these pre-existing differences in economic power are reinforced and exacerbated by a system which assumes they don’t exist. There is nothing wrong with the market mechanism, but if the inputs into it are grossly unequal because a few people have disproportionate economic power, then the outputs will be similarly unequal and many will be left in poverty.

Before we can build a brave new world, we have to acknowledge the depth of the current crisis. It’s tempting to trace today’s problems back to the financial meltdown of 2008, but that was the final act in a drawn-out drama of decline. The world was in bad shape long before 2008. If we can identify the root causes of the collapse of historical civilizations, and then find ways to break the cycle, progress will be possible. It isn’t a question of returning to some far-off golden age when all was well – no such time ever existed. Nor should we kid ourselves that we are a few short steps from Utopia. Our brave new world will remain a work in progress. Human beings are too complicated, and society too complex, for us quickly to reform our way to a world where all is peace and harmony. But we can start to identify the obstacles to progress and work to dismantle them.

The pursuit by individuals of limitless material prosperity – regardless of the consequences for others – has become the basis of all economic activity. Yet even those who succeed are rarely satisfied; they always want more. Their only means of achieving more is to deny the means to greater prosperity to those who have less. But even the super-rich seem unhappy with the outcome.

In the ancient world, empire building usually entailed the territorial conquest of one self-identifying group by another. Typically it involved exploitation based on racial or cultural differences, often justified by religious belief. But it was economics, not religion, that was the principal driving force, especially the desire to control more land. Land was the prerequisite for wealth creation in pre-technological times.

Changes to the monetary and taxation systems will provide mechanisms for curtailing two of the three forms of unearned wealth that drive much of the injustice and exclusion that blights today’s world.

Changes to the financial system will be necessary to address the third: gains from speculative investment. Speculative investment takes real wealth from those who create it, and drives the expansion of the money supply.

The objective of the financial system should be to act as intermediary between people with savings and those who seek funds for investment. Under the monetary reforms outlined above, the financial system would also have a role to play in the distribution of newly issued money to those in need of investment funds.

Supporters of the current free-market economy argue that competition among producers ensures efficiency and keeps prices as low as possible. This argument sounds reasonable in theory, but in practice it delivers the kind of race-to-the-bottom economy which sidelines workers and delivers much of the productive economy into the hands of a minority. Basing economic progress on competitive behaviour driven by fear and insecurity is an archaic way of organizing society. It’s an approach that assumes no advance in morals since the middle ages. It helps explain why psychopaths and people with other personality disorders are over-represented among business leaders.

Since the crash, taxpayers’ money has been used to bail out failing banks because they are perceived to be too big to fail. Are they too big to fail? Or should we be asking a different question: aren’t these banks too big to bail out? Firms in any other sector would be left to go to the wall, but, because governments have allowed the provision of credit to become a business, they now have to step in when the banking system is unable to meet the needs of the economy. What would be the consequences if they were left to their fate?

If people feel alienated when they are denied access to decent economic opportunities, then it must be the case that an inclusive economy would have the opposite effect. Fewer people would be inclined to indulge in antisocial behaviour or wanton acts of violence, or to express themselves through the destruction of other people’s property, if they were able to create some meaning and purpose in their lives. The one essential prerequisite to a meaningful life is work, even if that meaning is not derived directly from the particular job you do. Whether it’s rioting on the streets of one of the world’s richest cities, or hatching terrorist plots in marginal lands, it’s a universal truth that virtually all modern-day social violence is driven by economic exclusion.

Although the current crisis is possibly the most serious and complex in human history, it follows a pattern that has existed since ancient times. The rulers of early civilizations, like that in Mesopotamia, had wiser solutions than today’s politicians. When the landless and other dispossessed people in these ancient societies ran up unsustainable levels of debt which threatened widespread economic ruin, they bit the bullet and tackled the problem head on. The authorities periodically made clean-slate proclamations: all debts were written off. This had the effect of resetting the economy to its original condition. Money lenders would suffer a nominal loss of wealth, but because things had become so out of kilter they understood they weren’t going to get their money back anyway. It was accepted that such debt jubilees were the only way out of crisis.

Harold Crooks, Director of “The Price We Pay” and John Christensen, Director and Co-founder of Tax Justice Network discuss the Robin Hood tax, the capture of the political class by the financial industry and the hope that lies in civil society’s intensifying fight for tax justice in the second half of this interview series.

Harold Crooks, Director of “The Price We Pay” and John Christensen, Director and Co-founder of Tax Justice Network come to the studio to talk about the ‘finance curse’, taxation and the sustainability of democracy in the first half of this interview series.

The Fabian Society invited Nicola Smith of the TUC, Dan Corry – once a Labour government adviser – and me to address their Summer Conference last Saturday. The theme: how can Labour restore its economic credibility with the electorate? The audience was large – about 300 earnest, well-informed and assertive Fabians. The discussion was lively, with a buzz, as the session immediately following was to be a hustings for Labour leadership candidates.

The chances of reducing the number of lives ruined by war and other forms of social violence depend on our ability to identify the root causes. Terrorist acts, the retaliatory war against terror, civil wars in desperately poor countries, and the violent civil unrest which is an increasing feature in rich and poor worlds; all bring loss of life, destruction of property and the ruination of economic infrastructure. They also inflict hardship on many who escape their direct effects.

When you were born is irrelevant – how a mixed cohort now thinks — is about to change everything.

When making the film Four Horsemen we regularly heard a glib reservation about our efforts: “you will never get young people interested in business and economics”. We ignored this. How do you define ‘young people?’ Why are we just speaking to ‘young people?’ Are business and economics the preserve of people who are ‘older?’ Hubris and youth obsession are lethal especially when you examine what has happened over the last twenty five years.

“If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Malcolm X

So most of the UK is still reeling from a ‘shock’ election result. The pollsters, the media, the soundbites… nobody saw it coming. Except it wasn’t a shock – in 86 years we’ve only seen one election-winning PM have a single term in office. In about 200 years we’ve only seen two formal coalitions – the last coalition was a blip, not a trend.

Everyone has a basic right to shelter, which they should be able to call home. A home should not be an investment but a place to live. The economy can be positively reconfigured to enable this outcome, as long as we can move away from the destructive emotional propaganda and false assumptions that surround the housing market.

Ross Ashcroft interviews Ann Pettifor director of Policy Research in Macroeconomics, PRIME and fellow at New Economics Foundation. They discuss Ann’s 2003 prediction of the 2007 financial crisis, her Jubilee 2000 campaign and Private Debt and the issues surrounding it. This is an extract from the Renegade Economist Talk Show.

Changes on the scale and complexity outlined in this book will require global coordination if they are to be effectively implemented. The power of vested interests within the financial system is so great that, were one or a small group of nations to attempt to implement such reforms, their economies would come under immediate attack from the financial markets.

Steve Keen Interview – Part 5: The UK’s business like approach to education leaves very little room for innovation. How do we shift the focus from monitoring and testing to improving the teaching level and learning experience?

In 1970, ninety per cent of financial flows were used to finance trade or investment in the real economy; only ten per cent was speculative. Today more than ninety-nine per cent is purely speculative and has nothing to do with the real economy. As Simon Johnson says, “Wall Street has become a very specific type of casino. Unfortunately it’s not the type they have in Las Vegas that is a legitimate form of entertainment. It’s a casino that has massive negative effects on the rest of society.”

The use of precious metals as money goes back nearly three thousand years. Until quite recently, gold and other metals (notably silver) were the basis of money in nearly all societies. But, as modernity took hold, money no longer took the exclusive form of gold and silver coinage. Instead, paper money and base metal coins were issued and their quantity was linked to gold at a fixed rate. This satisfied the requirement for money supply stability because the stock of gold is relatively fixed and can only increase by the amount of new gold mined from the earth.

Perhaps surprisingly, the term ‘military-industrial complex’ was coined by a former soldier. On the occasion of his farewell address to the nation after serving two terms in The White House, President Eisenhower warned Americans: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” What would he make of the situation today, where US economic success seems inextricably linked to the continued production of the machinery of war on a scale unimaginable in Eisenhower’s time?

Steve Keen Interview – Part 1: In the aftermath of the Conservatives’ surprise victory in the UK, Steve Keen tells us why he thinks this is a good thing: when the economy inevitably under-performs under strong austerity, with no one left to blame we will have to face the facts…

Recently we were told about a secret project. A group of wealthy benefactors decided that the modern targets based education wasn’t for them or their kids. They decided to open a new school. It was to have a holistic approach to education geared toward student centric learning not toward Ofsted high jumps central bureaucracy, teacher’s egos or other mindless measurements. The consortium bought land and quicklybuilt the school. They hired best and teachers and provided the finest meals and accommodation. As the first day of approached and the curriculum had been set the builders were putting the finishing touches to the campus.

Apart from supine politicians, the greatest friends of the elite are those who control much of the mass media. The elite have proved exceptionally adept at persuading politicians, with whom they share a desire for power, that their interests also coincide. They are less good at persuading the mass of ordinary people of the benefits of elite power. They leave that task to their chums in the media, who follow a depressing but quite successful strategy to confuse, confound, divide and disempower their audience.

The principal factor driving people to get involved in terrorism is a strong sense of injustice, both at a personal level and in respect of their society. An accompanying sense of alienation convinces them they’re no longer bound by social and moral norms. The absence of any hope for the future leaves them with a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality. These factors are driven almost totally by poor economic conditions. There can be no doubt that poverty and economic exclusion create a fertile breeding ground for terrorists.

The following list is neither definitive nor exhaustive, but it summarises the main points of the book and is provided here as a starting point for further discussion. Creating a set of principles on which to base a successful process of global political and economic change has to be a collaborative project.

Freddie Gray’s death was the last straw for the victims of a corrupt financial system that has left tens of thousands of people with no work and no homes. This excerpt from ‘Four Horsemen -The Survival Manual’ gives context to the riots in Baltimore by explaining some of the broader issues at hand.

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it.

The wider public is depressingly disinterested in the workings of the economy; nowhere is this more evident than in their ignorance of the monetary system. If more people understood the means by which banks create money, the way it swells the coffers of the already wealthy, and the destabilising effect it has on the real economy, then surely there would be a outcry of Murdochian proportions.

Current best practices in risk management work only when correlations are stable. At turning points historical relationships between assets breakdown. The only way to effectively anticipate future risk factors is by understanding root macroeconomic causes.

Renegade Tycoons is the show that meets business owners, business leaders and entrepreneurs. Chrystina Schmidt is co-founder and creative director of Scandium, London’s leading Scandinavian designer home store.

As a way of securing wealth without engaging in real economic activity – the act of combining land, labour and capital to create something with exchange value in the market place – it’s been around almost as long as land rent. But unlike rent, the gains enjoyed by speculative investors arise not as a side-effect of legitimate economic activity, but as a result of a conscious effort by people with spare cash to subvert the natural workings of the economy. Speculative investment reduces the ability of the economy to meet it’s primary objective: enabling everyone to satisfy their basic needs through a process of mutual exchange.

Since they first appeared in the New Testament, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have ridden roughshod into the consciousness of every generation. They remain a potent symbol in popular culture. But, as a judgment on the failings of human beings, and as a warning to put our collective house in order, they’ve had remarkably little effect.

In this latest show Renegade Economist host Ross Ashcroft talks with Larry Lamb, George Lamb and Roger Mavity about todays relevance of the American Dream with Andrew Walker providing the data insights.

At issue is who shall rule the world: the emerging 1% as a financial oligarchy, or elected governments. The two sets of aims are antithetical: rising living standards & national independence, or a renting economy, austerity & international dependency.

Many people instinctively know that something is seriously wrong with the economy. Long before the historic events of 2008 things were far from good, especially for the half of the world’s people for whom the ‘economic miracle’ of the preceding decade had brought no prosperity.

Since the financial crisis that struck in 2008, the failings of the banking system have been laid bare for all to see. But, four years on, nobody has come up with an alternative and few acknowledge the extent of change required in banking and finance. A progressive banking system would ensure that there was enough investment in the real economy to create viable opportunities for everyone. It would not expose communities to the dreadful consequences of repeated economic crises. This book will attempt to outline such an alternative system and demonstrate how it could be implemented within a reasonable timescale.

If there was a form of “conscious capitalism” in which care was extended to fellow humans, animals and the natural environment whether animate or inanimate, the question is could it be called capitalism at all?

Since the advent of agriculture, and the realization by certain people that control over land is the surest route to political power, all human societies have been unequal. Most have been very unequal, but few have been as unequal as global society today. The real problem is not inequality per se, it is the methods that the elite uses to set itself apart. To create such inequality you have to deny viable economic opportunities to many people. Only an economy that condemns millions to inescapable poverty can deliver vast wealth to a few.

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in this society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

If the very workings of the economic system are denying people the opportunity to take responsibility for their own wellbeing, is it any wonder that a small number among the disenfranchised are drawn to terrorism?

Land rent is one of several sources of unearned wealth that bestow privileges on a minority of citizens while biasing the economy against the interests of the majority.

In classical economics, each of the three factors of production – land, labour and capital – earns a share of the wealth generated through enterprise: land earns rent, labour earns wages, and capital earns profit.

Poverty is blighting the lives of millions of people, and the environmental crisis is already making things worse. As with poverty, our failure to tackle the causes of climate change, and to ration the use of natural resources, are inevitable consequences of the way the economy is run. The problems of terrorism, poverty and the environment are all connected; they stem from a flawed economic system that nobody voted for.

Understanding why the economy is failing is key to unlocking the knowledge and power to do something about it. The situation we face is far from hopeless. As Satish Kumar says, “The crises we face today are created by humans and what is created by humans can be changed by humans, so we are all capable of transforming our world.”

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Animal Spirits by George A Akerlof and Robert J Shiller. In the preface to their book they discuss how Keynes’s General Theory included non-economic motivations and non-rational behaviours – the animal spirits of the title. But following the publication of the General Theory, Keynes’s followers began to root out the animal spirits, partly to facilitate quantitative versions of the theory and partly to make it more accessible to the old guard. But this left Keyne’s theory weakened, so much so that in the 1970’s a group of economists rooted the animal spirits out altogether.

They say things like: “If the total size of the money supply was fixed then there is no possible source of money for paying interest.” This may be followed by: “So this proves that the money supply is forced to increase forever, otherwise borrowers could never pay the money back.” They suspect that a proportion of borrowers must on aggregate, by definition be unable to repay the interest. This view is very widespread and has been stated in numerous popular articles and videos on YouTube.

Neo-classical models are neat, plausible, and wrong. The main reason that mainstream economics survived the challenge of the global financial crisis is not because of its strength, but because of it's irrelevance.

Haven’t we been here before? Three centuries ago philosophers began to address these questions in the movement known as the Enlightenment. Immanuel Kant described it as “Mankind’s final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.” But, while the Enlightenment succeeded in freeing human thought, it did not deliver a society in which the economic rights of all citizens were given equal weight.

A truly creative person can come up with better answers in half an hour than a month of mediocre researchers or marketers.

Not so long ago communist China was not a player in international finance, neither was the then Soviet Union. Step a little further back in history and you will see that in fact the European age of material science, trade and production for trade in the 16th century AD started out as a blessed relief after a period of terror and exploitation by religious powers i.e. the Spanish inquisition in the century previous. Before this trade and economic activity was rudimentary without much social power.

There is an accepted view in politics and the media that roughly equates to this: a professional class of ‘experts’ are far better at commentary and analysis than someone with a genuine interest. Hubris killed almost all Greek mythical figures, and as John Kay reminds us in his excellent book ‘Obliquity’, attempting to solve problems head on is futile. But our media and professional classes are blinkered to such views.

Since 1984 (surely an appropriate year) while the elderly have grown their wealth in nominal terms, the young are much worse off both in inflation-adjusted terms, as well as nominal terms(pretty hard to believe given that the money supply has expanded eightfold in the intervening years). So why are the elderly doing over fifty times better than the young when they were only doing ten times better before?

Look around. Oil companies guzzle down the billions in profits. Billionaires pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries, and Wall Street CEOs, the same ones that direct our economies and destroyed millions of jobs still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favours, and acting like we should thank them. Does anyone here have a problem with that?

UK politics is dominated by middle England pre-occupations, there are vaguely hysterical fears of the UK having a ‘Depardieu moment’, and capital flight in case of higher income taxes- not to mention fears of ‘taxing aspiration’. In part to sidestep these concerns calls are growing from radical quarters for Land Value Tax (LVT) which would be a tax on non-transferable (often inherited) wealth and assets rather than ‘hard earned’ income. Even if the UK coalition recently ruled out a ‘mansion tax’ – it is a sign of the times and the growing public unease at the transfer of wealth from poor to rich (trickle-up more than trickle down) that the proposition is even on the agenda in Britain at all. It’s time to challenge the neo-liberal hegemony.

A president is a high-level official who is elected to carry out a function. He is not a king, not a god. He is not the witch doctor of a tribe who knows everything. He is a civil servant. I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of people whom we attempt to serve and represent.

Over centuries, systems have been subtly modified, manipulated and sometimes purposefully corrupted to better serve the interests of the few. Each time Enlightenment ideals have encouraged new policies to tip the balance in favour of the struggling majority, the vested interests of elite power have pushed back hard. Their biggest act of retaliation has come with the economic reforms of the last three decades, a reaction to the inclusive economic and social polices of western governments in the period after 1945. Ordinary people have had little option but to keep accepting these changes. Human beings can adjust to living under virtually any conditions, but the trait that has enabled us to survive is the very trait that has suppressed us. As ex-World Bank Senior Economist Herman Daly says, “People are awfully forgiving, or they just don’t understand what has been done to them.”

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve used the words ‘elite’ and ‘minority’ in this series on unearned wealth, but I’m certainly not going to apologise for repeating myself: If visitors from Mars were to land anywhere on the planet today, they would quickly come to the conclusion that human society is deliberately arranged in the interests of one small section of the population.

The idea that society can set up a single "independent" committee of men to make far reaching decisions about the quantity of money needed by a nation of sixty four million people, all engaged in varied and complex activities - is bordering on authoritarian.

David Malone is the author of The Debt Generation and also an independent filmmaker covering philosophy, science and religion. David is a fierce critic of the bank bailouts arguing that they have lead to massive cuts in public spending.

The standard economic model is a brilliant piece of mathematics, winning Nobel Prizes for its originators Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu. It proves how if we all set the right price on everything we value and trade them at these prices, we end up with an ‘equilibrium’. In this equilibrium nothing of value remains unused, so giving anything more to one person would mean taking it away from another.

So, what should economics be about? Well, that depends on your values and world view. If you believe that everyone should have an equal chance in life, and that currently they don’t, then you will support changes to the economy that promote the equal distribution of life chances. If you don’t care so much about equality of opportunity – or you think everyone already enjoys adequate life chances – then you’ll be less excited by prospects of a reformed economics that gives insights into how to build a more inclusive society.

It’s what’s left unsaid

All the talk from politicians, economists and even most journalists is of government debt to GDP ratios. All of the problems of the Eurozone can be solved by bringing down these ratios, or so they tell us. In the UK ours is about 80%. This is high but not disastrous. However what no one is talking about is household debt at 100% of GDP, and private sector debt at 450% of GDP. Let us briefly try to show why this is a much more serious problem.

The main cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are sure of themselves while the intelligent are full of doubt.

As Gillian Tett of The Financial Times observes, “Most societies have an elite and the elite try to stay in power; and the way they stay in power is not merely by controlling the means of production, but by controlling the cognitive map, the way we think. And what really matters in that respect, is not so much what is actually said in public, but what is left undebated, unsaid.”

Some people just care about practical or personal concerns, and value capture is just as relevant from this perspective. Through it we begin to replace income taxation with a straightforward, efficient, and non-invasive revenue source.

Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence Magazine, explains why society would benefit from a cyclical economy rather than a linear economy, which is the product of our human arrogance at the great cost of the planet.

People tend to think that numbers are quite objective, but numbers in economics are not like this. Some economists say they're like sausages: you don't know what they really are until you cut into them.

Anything less than an equal share is a violation of the Law of Equal Liberty, for any exclusive claim over natural opportunities necessarily reduces the opportunities available for everyone else. There is only one way to ensure equality of opportunity: for the community to recapture the value of land. It is for these reasons that virtually all the notable classical liberal political economists supported the idea of the community recapturing the land values, using the discourse of taxation.

The answer depends on two things: how those profits are derived, and what happens to them. Last week we noted how the senior executives and shareholders of banks are able to award themselves absurd remuneration packages and inflated dividends out of the profits extracted by a banking system geared principally towards generating huge rewards for the already wealthy.

Education

Seen in a longer timeframe, education is best imparted from kindergarten and up. In this regard it can be said that true education is that which liberates human beings physically, socially, economically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually. Education should be left in the hands of educationalists and not commercial, industrial, religious, military, or political interests.

Throughout the 19th century the integrity of economics was steadily eroded. Whereas the ‘classical’ founders of the discipline had set their enquiries in the rapidly changing social context of the period and viewed economics as an integral part of the moral sciences, the new breed of ‘neo-classical’ economists had little interest in the real world.

Former Chief of Staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army Colonel and Visiting Professorof Government and Public Policy at the College of William & Mary. He is Professorial Lecturer in the Public Policy Honours Program at the George Washington University.

At the beginning of this series, I suggested a definition of wealth as ‘the ability to purchase in the market place those goods and services which are essential to wellbeing, along with others which, though not essential, nonetheless enhance quality of life.’ Having discussed the various means by which an elite minority secure for themselves vast amounts of unearned wealth, we should still ask the question: does it really matter?

Mainstream economic models ignore debt.

The argument goes like this: if I lend you £1 then you have +£1 and I have -£1; and -1 + 1 = 0. Debt cancels out and can be ignored when modelling the economy. It’s all very simple and economists tell us we’re stupid for not seeing it.

This book does not call for a lurch back to the left, however. If politics is to be of any use in facing down the current crisis, it has to transcend the old, glib definitions of left and right. A new economic paradigm will produce a new political paradigm: one that has far greater moral ambition, one that recognizes that the twin goals of protecting personal freedoms and promoting social justice can be reconciled, and one that doesn’t offer an unhelpful choice between state ownership and regulation and unfettered free markets, or a compromise between the two.

It is entirely natural for parents to want to support their children in every way possible, and for some this includes making financial provision for their offspring after their deaths. Several nations impose some form of tax on inheritance, although in the last decade as many nations have abolished such taxes as have chosen to keep them. But to deter an essentially altruistic act by the threat of post-mortem taxation seems unduly severe.

Wall Street has become a very specific type of casino. Unfortunately it's not the type they have in Las Vegas that is a legitimate form of entertainment. It's a casino that has massive negative effects on the rest of society.

In Britain the term “Lost Generation” was originally used for those who died in World War I. People mourned that “the best of the nation had been destroyed” and agreed that this left the country considerably worse off. All wars are economic and personal. The illegal Iraq war waged by American sycophant Tony Blair was a personal economic decision. The intergenerational conflict that now rages between the Baby-Boomers and their disenfranchised offspring is economic and personal.

First, if the city or state developed following the course of a river system and the river suddenly changed direction or dried up, its economy was adversely affected.

Secondly, if industries moved away from rural villages, the balance of the economy was also destroyed.

The third reason was a defective educational system. If there are defects in the rural educational system and the social system, economic balance is lost.In order to build a sound economy thirty to forty percent of the people in an area – neither more nor less – should depend directly on agriculture. If the percentage is smaller, agriculture is neglected. (Conversely, if the percentage is greater, there will be a heavy strain on agriculture.)

The crises we face today are created by humans and what is created by humans can be changed by humans, so we are all capable of transforming our world.

The Victorian age was one of great progress and great folly, and particularly a time of great ideas. While we scoff at buttoned down Victorian morality, they also began to provide for the poor, reform the legal system, reinvent medicine, and they esteemed philanthropy as a virtue.

There is nothing to be gained from blaming bankers, politicians or even economists for the current crisis. They flatter themselves if they think they created it. They didn’t. They may have driven it, but the crisis occurred because of the rogue code we have programmed into our economic software. If some among their number elect to oppose democratic pressure to rectify that error then they must be challenged. If they defend systems or practices which stand in the way of progress, their motives will become clear. But creating a better world is not about taking revenge on those who have benefited from the current order. Hopefully they will be persuaded to join a popular movement to create an economy and society in which everyone has a fair chance.

Interviewed by the Financial Times (June 7th 2003), Friedman admitted that, “The use of the quantity of money as a target has not been a success.” In light of Friedman’s recantation, I now offer these essays once again that the ideas in them may be reconsidered.

The time for change

Despite a faltering economy and the increasing squeeze on living standards, rising house prices remain persistently but not unsurprisingly viewed as a source of wealth and prosperity. This favourable notion of rising house prices has become deep-seated within British culture.